Bonnie barely alive

Tropical Depression Bonnie is barely clinging to life. Wind shear of 25 knots and dry air from an upper-level low pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico are taking their toll on Bonnie, which is now just a swirl of low clouds accompanied by a small clump of heavy thunderstorms on the north side of the center of circulation. These thunderstorms are now visible on New Orleans long range radar, and will arrive in coastal Louisiana early this afternoon, well ahead of the center. The Hurricane Hunters are in Bonnie, and have found a much weaker storm with top winds of just 30 mph.

Figure 1. Morning satellite image of Tropical Depression Bonnie. At the time, Bonnie had sustained winds of 30 mph.

Forecast for BonnieThe current NHC forecast for Bonnie looks good, with the storm making landfall in Louisiana near 9pm CDT Saturday night. According to the latest tide information, this will be near the time of low tide. This will result in much less oil entering the Louisiana marshlands than occurred during Hurricane Alex in June. That storm brought a storm surge of 2 - 4 feet and sustained winds of 20 - 30 mph that lasted for several days, including several high tide cycles. Bonnie will be lucky to be a tropical depression at landfall, and should only create a storm surge of 1 - 2 feet that will come at low tide. This will result in a storm tide level that will inundate land to at most one foot above ground level.

Elsewhere in the tropicsThere are no other threat areas of concern today. The only model calling for possible tropical development in the next week is the NOGAPS model, which predicts a strong tropical disturbance could form off the coast of Nicaragua in the Southwest Caribbean about a week from now.

Next updateThe next updates will be by wunderground meteorologists Rob Carver and Shaun Tanner. I'm taking advantage of a break in the tropical action to take a few days away. I'll be back blogging on Friday, at the latest.

I'm hoping that hurrkat gets banned personally.. why are the mod's ignoring him? All he does is downcast the season and call the mets wrong when he said no storms until August and two days later we had Bonnie, and remember when he said when Bonnie was in the Gulf that Bonnie would blow up? He's never right, he just comes on here to troll the blog and it works. Report, ignore, repeat.

GFS para shows a 1010 mb low, its something. ECMWF shows a disturbance off Africa. Its something Ike, the models don't have to show a Category 300+ roaring across the Atlantic for something to happen like a lot believe, remember NO model developed Bonnie except the CMC.

.SYNOPSIS...A TROUGH OVER THE FAR SE WATERS WILL MOVE INTO THECENTRAL WATERS TONIGHT AND TUE...AND ACROSS THE W PORTION TUENIGHT REACHING THE TEXAS COAST WED. A HIGH CENTER WILL DEVELOPOVER THE NW WATERS THROUGH FRI AS A TROUGH MOVES INTO THE NEPORTION.

.SYNOPSIS...HIGH PRES N OF THE AREA WILL WEAKEN AND SHIFT EASTWARD THROUGH FRI. A TROPICAL WAVE WILL ENTER THE TROPICAL N ATLC WATERS TUESDAY. A STRONGER TROPICAL WAVE IS FORECAST TO REACH THE FAR EASTERN TROPICAL N ATLC THU AND MOVE THROUGH THE REMAINDER OF THE TROPICAL N ATLC THU INTO FRI. THIS WAVE WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY INCREASING WINDS AND BUILDING SEAS. THIS WAVE SHOULD APPROACH THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA LATE FRI.

GFS para shows a 1010 mb low, its something. ECMWF shows a disturbance off Africa. Its something Ike, the models don't have to show a Category 300+ roaring across the Atlantic for something to happen like a lot believe, remember NO model developed Bonnie except the CMC.

Quoting hurrkat05:it looks pretty bleak for most of august with dust and shear ruling the tropics..i look for some action in the gom around the middle of august...i can't see nothing forming off the coast of africa until late august when the dust will start to calm down...im looking for maybe 3 storms to form in the month of august and 2 will reach hurricane force...2 will form in the gom...guys and storm w you in in for a nice vacation...im still sticking to my original 13 storms for the year and thats being generous....

Dust will go away, so will shear, the high is due to the La Nina, it moves in August. Listen to Storm, he's got a lot of experience, and he still thinks, along with most of us, that we will still have an active season. I'm thinking somewhere near 2004, or 2007, maybe a bit higher.

Quoting Hurricanes12:Whs, it's their job to make sure everyone stays safe. In your eyes, Bonnie wasn't what you expected. It was mainly disorganized, weak, and many people thought it would be another Katrina. That wasn't the case and I think it's time for you to move on from Bonnie.

Quoting StormGoddess:Hey there everybody. Wow, ya'll are using some really big words and a lot of technical jargon in here today that I'm not at all familiar with. This is really challenging. I'm kinda overwhelmed. lol

If you check out StormW's blog, he starts them with a list of "technical" terms. It's been a big help to me.

While there, make sure you read his blogs. Very informative, well written and easily accessible to folks who are learning.